This is a good news to our athletes. Knowing that Athletics, Swimming, and Boxing had been the consistent medal-earner for our athletes in the Olympics, Asian Games, and Southeast Asian Games, it is about time to develop the full potentials of our citizens to these sports. I do hope that the following pronouncement of Representive-Elect Manny Pacquiao will lead us to another level of sports competitiveness with other countries knowing him as a world’s top boxer that the country had produced so far!
With the following news & statements coming from a world-top elite athlete and now as a politician, I might be eating my words when I said that “Politics and Sports do not mix”.
Having been the Project Director of the DND-AFP Gintong Pangarap-Marathon (RP’s 1st Olympic Gold in Marathon) for more than 3 years before my retirement from the AFP and as the Head of the Elite Team Bald Runner Distance Project for the past 2 years, I think it will take Representative Manny Pacquiao for the remaining years and months before the 2012 London Olympics to produce our first Olympic Gold Medal, if not, up to the 2016 Rio De Janeiro Olympics with the hope that he’ll be re-elected for his 2nd term.
Rep. Pacquiao’s priority: Help RP win 1st Olympic gold
MANILA, Philippines – Boxing superstar Manny Pacquiao has yet to take his seat in Congress as Sarangani province’s lone district representative, but he already has in mind several projects he wants to pursue.
Foremost among his priorities is to help the country win its first Olympic medal.
“’Yan ang pangarap natin na makakuha tayo ng gold [sa Olympics],” said the congressman-elect.
Pacquiao said this goal will be one of his priorities in Congress, aside from providing livelihood to fishermen and farmers in Sarangani.
The Philippines has yet to win an Olympic gold medal since it joined the quadrennial event in 1924.
Pacquiao said it doesn’t matter which sport he will prioritize as long as it generates the elusive gold medal.
“Sa boxing, kahit ano, basta tutukan lang natin at kelangan lang ng suporta ng ating mga kababayan,” he said.
Pacquiao is also optimistic the party-list group Pwersa ng Bayaning Atleta (PBA), which he chairs, will eventually secure a seat in Congress.
He said PBA, which aims to represent amateur athletes in Congress, will help him realize the Filipino people’s Olympic dreams.
The closest the Philippines has gotten to an Olympic gold medal was during the 1964 Tokyo and the 1996 Atlanta Olympics.
Anthony Villanueva reached the gold medal round in the 1964 Olympics, but lost a controversial decision to Soviet Union’s Stanislav Stepashkin in the featherweight division. He took home the silver medal.
Thirty-two years later, in the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, Mansueto “Onyok” Velasco took home a silver medal after also losing a controversial decision against Daniel Petrov of Bulgaria in the final round of the light flyweight division.
The Philippines has also won 7 bronze medals in the Olympics.
The Filipino Olympians who have won bronze medals are: Teofilo Yldefonso (2), Simeon Torribio (1), Miguel White (1), Jose “Cely Villanueva (1), Leopoldo Serrantes (1) and Roel Velasco (1). — With a report by Dyan Castillejo, ABS-CBN News
Bald Runner 